enough is as good as a feast

Music: Note Names

Today’s exercise went in a very unexpected direction, which I guess is the fun of following the lead of your student’s interest. The only plan I had was ‘label the piano’, but here’s what we did:

-Got out our alphabet stickers and began labeling the notes– all the C’s, then all the D’s, etc. As we did this, I showed him out all the C’s sound the same, and so on with the other notes.

-Talked about how the high notes were light and high like a fairy’s feet, and the low notes were deep and heavy like a giant’s feet. Oh, oops, I mentioned fairies, so Scout Kid, “Where Peter Pan?”

-Improvised a quick song for each octave, with the low octaves serving as Captain Hook, the cannon, and the crocodile, on up through Peter Pan, Wendy, John & Michael, and Tinker Bell. Samples: “Crocodile ticks loud; his clock rings,”and “Peter Pan flies up in the sky.” Not fabulous lyrics but we did sing a lot of scales that way…